UK Company Debt Costs Soar Above US Peers as Rate Paths Diverge

The cost of money for UK companies is rapidly rising compared with firms across the Atlantic.

With UK economic data this week suggesting that the Bank of England has a lot more to do to get inflation under control, the yield spread of sterling investment-grade bonds over their dollar peers has been widening fast.

A 21 basis point jump this week took the spread to the widest since October, when the UK market was recovering from the turmoil caused by then-Prime Minister Liz Truss’s ill-fated budget. The indexes have a one-day lag.

This time the divergence is being ...